[foxFive]

I live in this neck of the woods, Midland is 30 minutes away and I often am in town to work or play. On the one hand, I'm kinda glad that the oil is there, those are big numbers especially considering that the price per barrel is half of what is was two years ago. It will definitely boost the local economy. On the other, we are just now starting to see the area begin to settle down from the influx of workers who came to the area for jobs. When oil is booming crime goes up, housing costs go up, and traffic gets dangerous. Not to mention all the water that gets wasted from fracking. Water restrictions were just lifted but the area cannot support more people for long. Groundwater is being contaminated and soon what little above ground water sources we have will run dry if the area continues to see growth, add to this the fact that the shale formations will need to be broken up (by fracking) to access the crude and it looks like even more water will be used, as well as increase the possibilities of sinkholes and seismic activity throughout the entire basin. This is not going to be enjoyable for the locals.

[giardini]

Open a small business installing water filtration systems on homes. It will be a growth market for the next 50 years in many parts of the USA.

[pryelluw]

Do you have more info about that?

[chronic6l]

You want him to handhold you and tell you exactly how to make a quick dollar? Ha.

[pryelluw]

Nope. Interested in what water filtration systems people are installing. Im looking to install one as well.

[dpc59]

It depends on the quality of the water. Where I live there's too much chlorine in it (nothing harmful but I brew beer so I need good water) and a 30$ brita filter seals the deal. In places with really shitty water distillation is a good place to start.

[pryelluw]

What are you using to measure the water quality?

[imaginenore]

Modern fracking has a waterless option. It's called plasma pulse technology (PPT).

[ZenoArrow]

Interesting, makes you wonder why it's not promoted more heavily. Are there any drawbacks with the PPT approach?

[forgetsusername]

>Are there any drawbacks with the PPT approach?

Cost efficiency.

[oliv__]

aka: more expensive

[ta2507823]

I imagine (from looking at it briefly) that it would not even nearly come close to the effectiveness of fracking. It looks very similar to water jet fracking - which doesn't work very well either

[ArkyBeagle]

There are just a few acre-feet of water actually used per well. The remainder should be treated and returned; there just isn't that much water out there.

But with frack companies hanging by their teeth it isn't clear that this will be done.

This is a solvable problem but market conditions and the people left in the industry my not support it very well. It's not exactly a hotbed of technological innovation.